Although PTSD has crept further into the national
consciousness in recent years as returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan
drive public awareness about the condition, I never set out to write something
about it. Far more used to writing educational material for younger
children, this was a departure from what I usually write. Initially, I just
wanted to write a novel aimed at older children to commemorate the 30th
anniversary of the Falklands Conflict. But while researching the conflict, three
things (one thing in particular) caught my eye and changed the complexion of
the book, and is partly why the book ran over schedule.
The first
thing was that although modern technology played a large part in the battle for
the islands, the fighting also involved desperate hand-to-hand combat, highly
unusual in modern conflicts and undoubtedly a harrowing experience – something
hard to forget. Another thing that grabbed my attention was that 17-year-old
British soldiers fought and died in the Falklands, something reflected in the
book by the use of the narrator, a young man who goes to war at 17. However,
one particular piece of information that came to light in my research for the
book had the biggest impact: the revelation that the number of
Falklands veterans who have taken their own lives since the war ended, many displaying
symptoms of PTSD, exceeds the number who died in the war itself. The Argentine veterans support group (CECIM) has made similar claims. And this is how the focus of the book changed. I wanted to examine the effect war can have on those who serve and those close to them; the far-reaching consequences of war that can touch the lives of so many long after the fighting has stopped.
Remembrance Day is approaching, a day we think of those who made the ultimate sacrifice - those who never came home. We should spare a thought too for those who returned from war but never left the battlefield. The tragedy of the loss of young lives taken in war cannot be measured by casualty statistics alone. Many more lives are snuffed out long after the fighting has stopped, the lives of Service men and women taken in battle alongside fallen comrades, only they don't know it at the time. On November 11, as the clock strikes 11 and silence falls and we remember the fallen, those who made it home but still made the ultimate sacrifice should be in our thoughts too.